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Indyref

Paul Cairney analyses the surge in support for the SNP after a no vote in the referendum. What does it mean? Paul will speak on Wednesday, 24 September at Stirling University on ‘Will life go on after the Scottish Independence referendum?’. For further details, please see here.

Over 1.7m Scots were energised enough about the future of their country to campaign, research and turn out to vote for radical change on the 18th September. And according one of the first post-result polls, 25% of No voters voted that way because they believed that Scotland would receive significant additional devolved powers whilst remaining in the UK. So that’s over 2 million voters wanting policy decisions for Scotland to be taken in Scotland.

Academics from the University of Edinburgh and two research projects, the Scottish Centre on Constitutional Change and the Future of the UK and Scotland Programme put the vote in its wider political, economic and cultural context.

In one sense, the answer to Scotland’s political future was comprehensively answered with the outcome of the independence referendum: 55% of voters opting to keep Scotland in the UK marked a decisive outcome, and one which, in recent weeks at least, was somewhat in doubt. However, beyond that restatement of Scotland’s place in the Union, little else of Scotland’s future is clear.

Following the defeat of devolution in the 1979 referendum, the SNP went into turmoil. It lost nine of its eleven MPs at the subsequent election and spent the next few years in a bitter internal civil war. In 1979, SNP members expected an easy victory. The internal divisions were a function of shattered expectations. That will not happen today despite the clear rejection of independence.

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